14 October, 2024

No Kidding: My Otherhood essay

Months on from Otherhood’s release, and I am now able to share my essay with you. It’s lengthy, and if you’re a regular reader here, there won’t be anything new. But I wanted to share it. It focuses on my life now, and recent years, rather than those early years of coming to terms. IDon’t forget, Otherhood is available internationally!

No Kidding

It was Mother’s Day 2014, an unusually warm, sunny day in May. I was lying in a hospital bed post-hysterectomy with the windows wide open, and I could hear chattering families getting in and out of cars outside. My husband had visited earlier. My surgeon’s nurse had also popped in, happily chatting about the meal she was about to have with her family. I felt very alone. No flowers, cards or chocolates for me. Never my favourite day, Mother’s Day, but this year I felt even more isolated than ever.

It was more than 10 years earlier that the door closed on having children, on my forty-first birthday. There was no party, no special dinner. Only a sad, tear-blurred drive home from the clinic where a last-ditch diagnostic test had surprised me with its finality. After years of trying and losses, I was not going to have children.

……..

I was a feminist from way back, even before I had ever heard the word. Growing up on a farm, with no brothers, meant that I never felt that girls were inferior. My sisters and I drove tractors, rounded up the sheep, and threw around hay bales just like any farm kid in New Zealand. Help inside the house was compulsory, too. None of it was gendered.

The feminism of the 1970s and the gains of the 1980s confirmed my belief that we were equal, and we all had the right to choose how to live our lives. I met my husband at university in Christchurch and we married young. But I wanted to embrace the opportunities that presented themselves to young women in the 1980s, and children were not something I thought about in my twenties. So, I was surprised when, in my mid-thirties, I actually felt ready to start trying for them. I was even more surprised by the devastating sense of loss I felt when I discovered I would never have children.

Coming to terms with this was not easy. I had to learn to accept this news, and then rebalance. I had to adjust my perception of what life might be like. I could not think, My kids would look like this, or wonder if they would be clever, or musical, or sporty, because it just was not going to happen. It was too painful to think about the ‘what-ifs’ and ‘should-have-beens’, so I didn’t let myself.

I had to deal with the guilt I felt at having a body that denied my husband and me children. I had to deal with the feelings of failure at not being able to do something that everyone assumes they can and will be able to do — ‘the most natural thing in the world’ as some people put it, or ‘the reason we are here on earth’, as a friend once said to me. And I had to deal with my fear of judgement from family, friends and acquaintances. I say ‘fear of judgement’ because a lot of that judgement was in my head. But not all of it.

Like everyone in my position, I had to make this adjustment while surrounded by fertility and pronatalism. Pronatalism is when parenting is prized over non-parenting, and as a result, those who parent are awarded a superior status over those who do not. Friends and family were creating and raising families, the ever-present emphasis on motherhood in the media seemed to grow, commentators and advertisers alike made me feel invisible, and of course, politicians focused on ‘the average family’ and talked about ‘your children and your children’s children’ in election campaigns. It was almost impossible to escape the feeling that I was in some way considered marginal to society, ‘other’ or ‘less than’ because I wasn’t a mother.

It was very painful to hear ad nauseum — sometimes blatantly, often subliminally — from society at large that I was not as important, that my life had less value, that I didn’t know what love is, and that I wasn’t a ‘real’ woman. (Someone actually said this to a friend of mine. Ouch.) Many women really struggle with this. Throughout their lives they have been conditioned to believe it. There is so much shaming involved. Men get similar messages.

‘C’mon, be a man, get your wife pregnant,’ my husband’s brothers said to him. At first, my own thoughts parroted these ideas back to me. But fortunately, with my innate sense of logic, I came to see how false these thoughts are. There are examples in the news every day of people who are parents but should never have had children. They have not been judged ‘worthy’ to be parents — biology simply allowed them to be — just as I have not been judged unworthy.

As I learnt to dismiss those internal negative voices, it became easier to dismiss the loud, external voices too. I came to see that unhelpful and judgemental comments told me more about the person making them than they did about me. Most fell under the category ‘how to tell me you don’t understand without saying you don’t understand’. The ignorant ‘just adopt’ comments; the cruel ‘here, have my kids’ said whilst laughing uproariously; the dismissive ‘at least you can <fill in the blanks>’ comments that either came from a degree of envy of my freedom, discomfort at my situation, or a wish to silence me because it just made the conversation too awkward.

Oh, and on top of all that, we are told we are selfish. Yet many generous, giving people do not and could not have children. And many selfish people have them.

……..

I gradually managed to develop an inner belief in myself, rejecting the messages and judgements that were all around me. An online community I joined after my first ectopic pregnancy loss was enormously helpful in making this transition. Talking to others who understand was, and always is, immensely helpful. We shared our fears and our victories, gained hope from those who were a few years ahead of us, and provided hope for those coming behind us. We had  a lot of fun, too. If I couldn’t sleep or was upset in the middle of the night, there would be someone up and ready to chat in Coventry or Dorking or Indiana or Vancouver.

As the years passed, we became firm friends. Some of my UK friends travelled here, and I travelled there. Together with other volunteers and users, we celebrated the organisation’s 10-year anniversary at the House of Commons in London. These online and now in-person friends and I ate cream cakes, looked out the window at the Thames, and educated British MPs on ectopic pregnancy.

Back then, online support was relatively new, and people didn’t understand it. But if you don’t have friends and family in real life who have been through similar experiences, then many people need to look online. However hard some of my friends tried to support me, they were never going to ‘get it’ at the same level as those who had been through it.

Of course, in real life, many people do not even try to understand, don’t broach it with us, and don’t in any way acknowledge our lives without children. They worry about upsetting us (even though silence is always more upsetting), they think it is easier to ignore the issue, or they suggest adoption as if that is easy (it isn’t) and solves everything (it doesn’t). I was once at a women’s business networking lunch, where a woman next to me asked if I had children. When I said ‘no’, she muttered something and turned her back to me — for the rest of the lunch, which was supposed to be all about business networking. Sadly, this reaction is not that unusual.

Deep down, I knew I was not to blame, that my life was as valuable as that of any other individual and, most importantly, that my life would still be good, despite the societal messages that seeded guilt and doubts when I was at my lowest. I came to accept the hand I’d been dealt, even if at first I didn’t like it, and I felt like acceptance was a betrayal.

In the midst of my early grief, I sat on a clifftop looking out over the Tasman Sea on a bright summer’s day, listening to the waves crashing below me. I felt the sun on my back. It made me smile, and I knew even then I would be okay.

Over time, I found renewed joy in life. And I was lucky. My friends were mostly professionals, had their kids at different ages, and always felt that  being a mother was part of who they were, but not the only thing. It made it easier to spend time with them, because we always had other things to talk about — politics, books, travel, work, houses, art, wider families, fashion, social change, you name it. Perhaps inevitably, one or two friends dropped away, as they increasingly spent all their time with the friends they had met through their children’s schools or activities. It hurts to be dropped. But that was their loss, too, as we would have gladly supported them and their kids in those difficult, growing years.

……..

My husband and I became that classic cliché of a couple without children, travelling internationally. I had wanted to travel since I was a child, it had been a large part of my career, and it was one of the things I had looked forward to doing with children. But now we had to do it alone. It wasn’t that we had a lot of extra funds. A friend once talked about the fees for her daughter’s private school. ‘See, that’s my annual travel budget,’ I pointed out.

During one trip, on a gorgeous island off the Queensland coast, we were talking about where to go next. We could hear the waves lapping against the beach as a gentle tropical breeze cooled the balcony where we were enjoying a lunch of beer-battered barramundi and champagne. How could we top this? ‘We need to put together a ten-year travel plan,’ my husband suggested. My heart lifted. I set to my task with enthusiasm, and over the next 10 years we saw many new places and had many new experiences. Every cloud has its silver lining.

Life was good. I had left full-time employment and was thoroughly enjoying freelance consulting, serving on boards, chairing a government-owned company, and volunteering for the ectopic pregnancy charity’s online support services. After six years my volunteer role ended, and I looked for a way to replace that. I found several women blogging about being childless. There are a vast number of supportive communities online that bring people together, provide valuable information, and offer an understanding ear. This was certainly true of those who were involuntarily living life without children. I had found my tribe.

In 2010 I began blogging myself, as No Kidding in NZ. I was perhaps the first person blogging in New Zealand about living a childless life and accepting it. Others were still trying to conceive, and even now, newspaper or TV articles tend to focus on people who hope that they will still have children. Then there are the stories that end in the ‘miracle baby’. They are the exception, not the rule, but they disproportionately dominate infertility stories in the media. Because the idea that you might not have children when you wanted them seems to be too awful, too final, for both media and the public to confront. We are everyone’s worst nightmare, and those going through infertility find it almost impossible to believe that we might be happy. But for exactly that reason, it is important to talk about our stories, the tough times, and even more importantly, the good.

So, I blogged. At first I wrote under a pseudonym, but I have since nervously spoken out in several articles, internationally and nationally, under my own name. I was receiving well over a thousand hits a week to my little blog, so I knew I was reaching people. I talked honestly about the positives and the negatives of my life. My mantra is ‘I’m not kidding’ (pun intended). The feedback from people who needed to hear that they were not alone, and that this life can and will be good, made sense of the isolation that I used to feel, and the loss that I had endured.

Because that’s the thing that is rarely recognised. There is ongoing loss, no matter how well I have healed, no matter how much I am enjoying my life, no matter how it seems that I am now ‘over it’. A friend once said, as I was losing my second pregnancy, that I hadn’t had anything, really, so I hadn’t lost anything. This was a common refrain. But it didn’t feel like that. I miss the lives that my children would have had, their growth, difficulties, victories, their future. I miss their interactions with their cousins of the same age.

Every Christmas, I decorate my tree on my own. I donated the Christmas stockings I had bought in hopeful anticipation at a market in Thailand years ago. I will never teach a child how to bake, knit, crochet or sew, how to swim or play netball, how to play the piano, or introduce them to the joy of books, languages and travel. I will never fall about laughing with my child over something ridiculous. My husband and I celebrate major wedding anniversaries and birthdays alone. We travel alone. And when we cared for our elderly parents through illnesses, distress and confusion in their last years, we felt the gaping future loss that we won’t have children to be there and care for us in the same way. Don’t ever tell me I haven’t missed anything! I love my life. But it has come at a cost.

By the time I was in my late forties and perimenopause was making its presence known, I was not afraid. For me, it was a great leveller. It was a shared experience with women in the way that motherhood had never been. An experience that gave me permission not to focus on the differences between mothers and non-mothers, but our similarities.

……..

After that difficult Mother’s Day in hospital, there was real cause for celebration in my hysterectomy. Some women find it devastating. They question their own womanhood. But by the time I had surgery, I had already done the hard work. I had long dismissed society’s gaslighting, refusing to accept that an issue with my body meant that I was in any way a second-class woman. For more than 10 years, I had dealt with the issue of who I was without being a mother. I knew more about myself, about other people, and about my personal values. Working as a volunteer with women had taught me about resilience and growth. Writing had led to deeper thinking, sorting out my values and beliefs. Maybe this was simply a result of being in my fifties and knowing myself better. If I’d had children, I would have undoubtedly changed, too. But going through those years of loss and rediscovery led me to a new stage of self-knowledge and understanding.

So, for me, my hysterectomy was a welcome liberation. After all, my uterus had — it seemed — actively conspired to kill me, first with not one but two ectopic pregnancies, and then with fibroids, leading to urgent blood transfusions. It had never been of any use to me, and I did not miss it when it was gone. I knew that a uterus, or what I might have done with it, did not define me as a person, and definitely not as a woman.

This meant that I could move into my fifties and the rest of my life feeling confident and free. Menopause, for me, meant that my reproductive status was no longer relevant. That was liberating. It came at a time when friends and family were facing empty nests and were more available to socialise. (Although this is not the same as being childless!) Our respective reproductive status is, for the time being, completely irrelevant.

Of course, my husband and I are now also beginning to think about our old age. Caring for his parents taught us much about the preparations needed, and the mental and physical declines that we may experience. Unlike many who are parents, we can’t ignore it and leave it to our kids. It is easy to be afraid. Most childless people worry, ‘Who will look after me when I’m old?’ There will be no one else around on a day-to-day basis to help us. So, we need to prepare. We’ve seen too many elderly people, both with and without children, fail to do so. It causes angst — for them and their carers. We know that we need to decide where we live, and what help we might need. And crucially, we need to act before it is necessary, because by then it is already too late.

That is an unexpected advantage of ageing without children, I think. We are less complacent. We cannot afford to be. We know life does not always go to plan. We know we cannot leave it to someone else.

Even writing wills as a childless couple is more complicated. I made this admission in front of a friend who clearly found it too much detail or saw it as a complaint, and — although I was already 50 — responded with ‘Well, you could still adopt!’ But there are so many questions to answer. Who will have power of attorney? Who will be executor of estate? How well do we know all our nieces, nephews and great-nephews? Do they need our help? Do we want to leave a legacy in other ways? For us, the answer to that last question is yes, and we have made provision for scholarships and medical research grants among other things. But it isn’t simple.

……..

Almost 20 years on from that drive home from the clinic on my birthday, I am happy with my life without children. Mostly childfree now, rather than childless, I can see and embrace the positives in life without children. If I did not, if I simply mourned the life as a mother I never had, then I would have lost two lives — the life I wanted, and the life I have now. The only way to honour my losses and everything I have been through is to grasp this life, appreciate it, and thrive in it. I owe it to myself, and to my husband. I am not kidding.

I was asked recently what gives meaning to my life. I talked about my husband, my writing, and how I have been able to help others also on this path. But ultimately, my answer was that the most meaningful thing in my life is simply my life itself — living it, enjoying it, feeling gratitude for it. Shouldn’t that be what gives every life meaning?

 


07 October, 2024

Pronatalism in fiction

Recently I got thinking about pronatalism in fiction, and how the childless are portrayed. Loribeth covers it as part of her NOMO bookclub reads.  My husband and I have been fans of Outlander, the TV series, after reading most of the books years earlier. The first book by Diana Gabaldon, which I read as Cross Stitch (as published in the UK/Australia/NZ etc) was both historical fiction, fantasy, and bodice ripper, though these days, they’re much more focused on the historical fiction side of things. Last year we finished the latest episodes, and I went back to watch the first season. Of course, I got hooked, binge-watching the entire seven seasons, and staying up far too late doing it!

The main character is Clare, a feisty, independent woman. They make a lot of this, showing her bridling against the strictures of society’s views of women, both in the 18th century and in the mid-late 20th century. I’ve liked that part of her character, even though I’ve rolled my eyes at her ignorance of the place in society she was at the time expected to accept.

So on a second rewatch, you wouldn’t think I should have been so surprised with the concentration of pronatalism in the story – that the only way to have a legacy is to have children, that to have children together is the ultimate expression of a relationship, that a strong woman still needs to be seen as a mother, et cetera. Of course, it is set largely in the 18th century or in the 1950s through to the 1970s, and so antiquated views of women were still frequently plot points. The easiest to watch were in the 50s-70s, because I know that some views have changed, and I could see that they were trying to make a feminist point. The hardest scenes to watch were when it was accepted as so normal that the writers and filmmakers weren’t actually making a feminist point or setting out historical beliefs. The pronatalism just blared through, expressions of the main characters’ beliefs as if these were still universally normal in the 21st century.

And so I found it a bit isolating to watch. My fault, because I was binge-watching, that I had the onslaught of pronatalism all at once. But still, it was frustrating to feel so judged and at the same time so ignored at the same time.

 

30 September, 2024

No Kidding Healing Project: A revisit

Almost five years ago I began writing a series of posts under my Healing Project title. It was early 2020, and I didn’t realise the irony of the title, just when healing was about to become so difficult as the pandemic took hold across the world. We still haven’t healed from the changes that were wrought – societal, biological, political – during that pandemic, and covid still takes lives.

I tried to look back, see what had helped me heal, and move through each concept methodically. Yes, I have it marked here in a separate page on this blog. But frankly, if you read this on a mobile device, you won’t see the links easily, and any new readers might be completely unaware of the project. So here is a summary post, with links to each original post:

Day 1 - Show Up. Showing up is halfway there. Acknowledging that there is healing to be done, and that you are ready to be open to the idea that you can, in fact, heal from the grief of childlessness, is a major step.

Day 2 - Feel. There’s no healing without feeling. What you resist persists. Feel what you feel – that honesty is valuable.

Day 3 - Delight. Delight and joy show that life is always worth living, and they are signs that we will be okay. Let it find you. Let yourself feel it.

Day 4 - Surrender. Surrender. It so often is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of resolve, a sign of hope, and a new beginning.

Day 5 - Love. Love yourself. It brings compassion, empathy and comfort. To yourself, and then to others.

Day 6 - Forgive. Forgive yourself, your body (or your partner’s body), your emotions and decisions (and your partner’s emotions and decisions) and limits. It’s a gift to yourself, and brings new opportunities.

Day 7 - Honour. Honour yourself, honour your partner (if you have one), and honour those you have lost. Honour them all by living well. Honour. It’s so much more productive than guilt.

Day 8 - Write. Writing saved me. At the very first, it simply released me from having to remember, allowing me to sleep. Then gradually became the way I figured out what I thought, how I felt, and how I could move forward.

Day 9 - Appreciate. Learning gratitude is one of the first steps in healing. Appreciating the tiny joys in life, and then eventually seeing the benefits of a No kidding life, help us appreciate the life we have, rather than the one we lost.

Day 10 - Balance. Balance and perspective are what help us know we will be okay.

Day 11 - Dare. The beginning of acceptance is being brave. Shrugging off what hasn’t worked for us. Daring to be positive about our lives. Beginning to hope for something new.

Day 12 - Accept. We need to accept what has happened to us, accept our reality. That brings us to the second step – taking acceptance, and making it part of us. Because when we can do that – without self-recriminations, without judgement, without cringing – we can put an end to the battle. Sure, we carry everything we’ve been through with us, but with acceptance, we carry the lessons, rather than interminable pain.

Day 13 - Connect. You are not alone. Connections – whether in real life or online – help us feel normal, teach us wisdom, encourage us as we develop, walk beside us, and hold us when we fall.

Day 14 - Enquire. Asking questions, challenging assumptions and stereotypes, can silence those negative voices in our heads, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. But we can also challenge the assumptions of those people around us, their thoughts of the childless, as well as challenging our own thoughts about others. It’s my favourite technique of all, I think.

Day 15 - Admit. Admitting the truth to ourselves, the realities of our situations, our thoughts, our expectations, all help us to navigate our lives.

Day 16 - Experience. Living each of our lives is a unique experience. When one choice is taken away, maybe we don’t know what to anticipate. But perhaps we don’t need to. Experiencing life, day by day, can bring great joy.

Day 17 - Speak. I try to choose my moments. I speak here, and I speak up from time to time around family and friends and acquaintances who sometimes resort to false stereotypes or assumptions, and I speak more publicly when I can. Most importantly, I speak these truths first to myself. Maybe that's all some of us might need. I refuse to feel invisible, or diminished, and that prompted me to speak, and feel more truly myself.

Day 18 - Remember. Remembering is not dangerous. It helped me learn from everything I went through. Most importantly, it reminded me of the love I set out with. My memory has to be focused on the love – for my losses, for my husband, for myself. The pain has diminished, and now I can simply remember and feel the love.

Day 19 - Liberate. Liberate yourself from your own expectations, from society’s limitations, from stereotypes and judgemental voices, from guilt and pain, so that you can embrace yourself and your life. Liberation. It’s both the result of, and the penultimate step to healing, living and enjoying our No Kidding lives.

Day 20 - Celebrate. Celebrate your survival, your wisdom, the connections made, your new life and its unexpected joys.